Port 302 (TCP/UDP) has no official assignment. It belongs to the well-known ports range but carries no protocol, runs no standard service, and appears in no RFCs. It's an empty chair at the table.
What Range This Port Belongs To
Port 302 sits in the well-known ports range (0-1023), also called system ports.1 These ports are special. On Unix-like systems, only processes running with root or administrator privileges can bind to them.2 This privilege requirement creates a security boundary: it prevents unprivileged users from impersonating critical services like web servers, email servers, or DNS resolvers.
Well-known ports are assigned by IANA through strict procedures—either "IETF Review" or "IESG Approval."3 To get a well-known port, you must document why using a port from the registered range (1024-49151) or dynamic range (49152-65535) won't work. The bar is high.
Port 302 hasn't cleared that bar for any protocol. It remains unassigned.
What Unassigned Means
Unassigned doesn't mean forgotten. When RFC 6335 documented the IANA port assignment procedures, approximately 24% of well-known ports were unassigned.3 That's intentional reserve capacity.
The well-known range has 1,024 slots (0-1023). Not every protocol deserves one. The slots that remain empty are held for future protocols important enough to require root privileges—protocols that need the security guarantees and standardization that come with a well-known port number.
Port 302 specifically falls within a block (288-307) that IANA lists as unassigned.4 No service has claimed it. No RFC defines its use.
Why Unassigned Ports Matter
The privilege requirement for well-known ports creates structure. If any user could bind to port 80, anyone could run a fake web server. If any process could claim port 22, SSH would be trivially impersonable. The root requirement prevents this.
Unassigned well-known ports preserve this security model for the future. They're like empty land in a city—held for buildings important enough to justify the location.
From a security perspective, unassigned ports also matter because anything listening on them is non-standard. If you find something on port 302, it's either:
- A custom application someone configured to use that port
- Malware trying to hide in an unusual location
- A testing or development service
Standard services don't run there. That makes unusual activity easier to spot.
How to Check What's Listening on Port 302
Three commands can show you what's listening on any port:
Using ss (modern, recommended):5
Using netstat (older, deprecated):5
Using lsof:5
All three require root or sudo privileges to show complete information including process names and PIDs. If something is listening on port 302, these commands will tell you what it is.
On a standard system, these commands should return nothing. Port 302 should be silent.
The Empty Space
Port 302 carries nothing. It's held in reserve, part of the roughly quarter of well-known ports that remain unassigned—gaps in the Internet's numbering system, waiting for protocols important enough to fill them.
Most ports tell stories about the services they carry. Port 302 tells a different story: about the value of empty space, about standards that plan for the future, about the discipline of not assigning numbers until something genuinely needs them.
It's a reserved seat. Empty by design.
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